[Holy] Role in Raiding

Talking to some of the healers in my guild and it seems that there are differing opinions as to what class should fill what primary role in the raid. Specifically related to tank healing but in general as well.

In current content, assuming 25m heroic raiding and access to all healers of equal skill, what do you all think plays to the strengths and weaknesses of different healing classes?

Any healer played well should be able to fufill any kind of healing role. Fact. There is no other truth.

If there is someone in your group who believes otherwise they've haven't explored an avenue of their healing abilities. And are not trying hard enough.

Paladins can aoe heal effectively if they focus well and track EF ticks and know what talent (Hammer or Prism) to use on what fight. Paladins can tank heal with greatest ease.
Resto druids need little to no focus to aoe heal well, maybe be aware of raid positioning a little bit, and can tank heal fairly smoothly when focusing.
Disc priest can...fuck it, disc priests can do anything they damn well want. SHIELD ALL THE THINGS.
Holy priests are superb aoe healers, and with good chakra management, effective tank healers as well.
Monks... well raid healing, what even is that, the monk already did it. Would think weakest of the tank healers but so much utility to carry that. I just never see our monk doing much tank healing is all.
Resto shaman is pretty much flat average on all counts, Depends heavily on rain positioning, cooldowns and skill level (playing a shaman to full potential at the moment requires some finesse, but it can be done).

At the end of the day, every healer should be doing everything. All the hots on the tank, beacon, shields, etc, all keep an eagle eye on the tanks at all cost and then just aoe heal effectively during heavy periods/soft aoe or spot heal during sleepy parts, or regain mana in some cases.

Exceptions to the rule are spread out fights, you generally want to keep a paladin with tanks (especially if the tanks themselves are NOT paladins, your hand of purity and/or Hands of Protection can be gold), if none available, priest or shaman. Druids and monks should be wrecking meters with aoe usually but as I said this is not set in stone.

At least that is how we've done it, assignments only ever need to be very loose, since most tanks are extremely efficient at mitigating most damage, I rarely hear a 'I got no more cooldowns' through mumble, and if I do that's the cue for all healers to change a bit of focus or add cooldowns of their own.

TLDR: Roles, there are no roles Neo. Only healing.

Originally Posted by savutitus

Yeah, it's always WAR WAR WAR untill..BY ALL THAT IS HOLY DO YOU SEE THAT ENEMY OVER THERE?? GLORIOUS LOOT!!!!!

Resto shaman is pretty much flat average on all counts, Depends heavily on rain positioning, cooldowns and skill level (playing a shaman to full potential at the moment requires some finesse, but it can be done).

Shaman realistically should be the best tank healer with the health increase and increased healing to lower health targets.

And as for resto shaman. We have ONE in our entire roster. And I do a better job tank healing. So either we've got some discussions to have or it's simply a matter of how you play. Utility can affect an encounter desirability quite alot.

I rarely go digging through charts and logs that aren't our own but I have a vague idea of how my healers can and will perform and it's enough to cover heroic encounters, so there's been not much need to whip everyone for improvement. Granted if it were me, personal self improvement is a given, but quite a few members of ours have busy lives at the moment and demanding more of them is just going to drive them away from what should be a fun evening activity, so I try to make it as entertaining as possible while keeping the edge of 'this is my expectation'.

Originally Posted by savutitus

Yeah, it's always WAR WAR WAR untill..BY ALL THAT IS HOLY DO YOU SEE THAT ENEMY OVER THERE?? GLORIOUS LOOT!!!!!

I'm no expert on the matter, but I've always felt that a paladin can EF blanket the raid sure, pulling top heals at that (well, in 5.2 maybe.) But that EF blanketing is sniping heals from the monk, and what is a 10k hps increase for the paladin is a 20k hps loss to the monk. and whats that? oh the Tank is dead! I have only seriously raided as a monk and a paladin as healers, but from playing the two I personally think in a 25m enviroment the paladins should absolutely play tank healers unless you already have 2 disc priests and another H pally tank healing. In 10m Healer jobs mix more, and 2 healing both healers will have to play both roles. (Although when I two heal 10 mans I still try to focus on the tanks with off raid heals while our druid focus on the raid keeping the tanks up on the side.) The bottom line though is, if your druid excels at keeping tanks up, and your holy paladin is awesome at raid healing, and its working, why change it? It may not be optimal but if the raid is surviving your healers are doing their jobs.

I'm no expert on the matter, but I've always felt that a paladin can EF blanket the raid sure, pulling top heals at that (well, in 5.2 maybe.) But that EF blanketing is sniping heals from the monk, and what is a 10k hps increase for the paladin is a 20k hps loss to the monk. and whats that? oh the Tank is dead! I have only seriously raided as a monk and a paladin as healers, but from playing the two I personally think in a 25m enviroment the paladins should absolutely play tank healers unless you already have 2 disc priests and another H pally tank healing. In 10m Healer jobs mix more, and 2 healing both healers will have to play both roles. (Although when I two heal 10 mans I still try to focus on the tanks with off raid heals while our druid focus on the raid keeping the tanks up on the side.) The bottom line though is, if your druid excels at keeping tanks up, and your holy paladin is awesome at raid healing, and its working, why change it? It may not be optimal but if the raid is surviving your healers are doing their jobs.

Paladins are not the tank healer. The sooner you get that outdated idea out of your head, the better.

Paladins are not the tank healer. The sooner you get that outdated idea out of your head, the better.

Nor does a dedicated "tank healer" really exist anymore. If anything, you only have dedicated raid healers (who can still heal the tank).

In 10m, both healers have to share duties in watching the tank and the raid (given the increase of 2 heal fights). In 25m, it's not much different. One possible setup would be 2 healers per tank, and 1-2 dedicated raid healers, but the "tank healers" are also expected to contribute to raid healing.

Perhaps I misrepresented myself. I was thinking more on two prominent playstyles I have noticed from Holy paladins.

One being to stick your beacon on the tank and focus your efforts into putting 1-2hp efs on as many raid members as possible, building holy power with HS/HR and relying on your beacon transfers to be your share of tank healing. *The main difference being to never really divert your heals into the tank while doing so, your main focus is raid healing with a stream to the tank, anything that stream fails to heal needs to be picked up by other healers*

The other is to focus on keeping the tanks alive, Putting 2-3 HP EFs on each tank and be prepared to switch to him whenever he's falls near 60% or lower. Building holy power with HS/FoLs on him if he needs a heal or with HS/HR/FoL on the raid if he doesn't. Holy power would then be dumped into the tanks first if they need their EF refreshed or if they need a big heal, otherwise put into either EF on a raid member who needs a big heal or LoD if 5-6 people can fully benefit from the heal.
*Later in the thread a potentially better gameplan is layed out, while still focusing on keeping 2-3hp EFs on the tanks you instead switch to blanketing the raid with 1-2hp EFs until the tank is in need of another big heal, Which is likely the better way to go for some fights*

While there is no set "tank healer" and "raid healer" you can't deny some classes have an easier time effectively healing tanks and others have an easier time effectively healing the raid, why not make the class which is better at focusing on tanks focus on the tanks, while the stronger raid healers focus on keeping the raid alive? Its about optimizing the overall healing from your raid as a whole, instead of optimizing the healing of yourself.

To further clarify my point, When I'm playing my paladin (10m) I will focus on keeping the tank above 60% health, with a 3 HP EF, beacon, and HS/FoL/HL if needed, when the tank is above 60% health I will instead divert my healing onto raid members, be it with HS, HR, or FoL (beacon swapped) to gain HP and then casting EF on players who need the heal (be it a small EF if no one needs a large heal, or a big EF if they need the big heal,) but when the tank takes a hit below 60% I will stop my raid healing and get him healed.
*This is an extremely basic attempt at explaining how I heal, which is something that comes naturally and is usually hard to explain, as any good healer I would change up my healing to match whatever is needed from me at the time, Be it heavy raid heals or hard tank healing or a balancing act of the two, letting one stay lower than you'd like to get the other up.*
If I'm playing my Monk(25) I'm casting my ReMs, uplifts, etc. If I see the tanks health drop I will continue focusing on getting my ReMs on the raid, dumping chi on uplift if its needed, and keeping my TFT on cd if needed. only when none of those things need done will I then start channeling soothing mists on the tank (or if he's getting beat hard I will use EnvM/Healing Spheres) but keeping my raid heals up comes first, because other classes can heal the tanks better than me so they need to be doing it while I keep the raid alive.

This playstyle require you to wholly focus on EF blanketing and not really divert your efforts onto any one player in particular (The tanks.). The other is to put your efforts into making sure the tank is fully topped off, and when he is to then put your efforts into keeping the raid up while pooling Holy Power for EF's on the tank/s.

Why do you think these are the only ways?

Originally Posted by Salanis

This means most of the time you will be casting holy shock/Holy Radiance/Flash of Light on the raid to build holy power, and dumping that holy power into the tanks (or the raid if you cap out and the tanks are full,) but when the tank is taking heavy damage you start spamming Flash of light(or divine light) into the tank to build your HP instead.

So what is stopping you from getting HP from the tanks, and then using it on the raid? (and by logic, also using it on the tank then?)

Originally Posted by Salanis

While there is no set "tank healer" and "raid healer" you can't deny some classes have an easier time effectively healing tanks and others have an easier time effectively healing the raid, why not make the class which is better at focusing on tanks focus on the tanks, while the stronger raid healers focus on keeping the raid alive?

Because that's not how things work. Most healers are better off doing a combination of both, so you're better off having all healers put some healing on the raid.

Case: Druid rolling Lifebloom on a tank, but then focusing HoTs/WG on the raid instead of just spamming Regrowths. Regrowth can then only be used on the tank when absolutely needed, but the druid is still predominantly raid healing.

Case 2: Disc priest using PW:S on the tank specifically for Rapture procs, and then raid healing. If the tank dips, Penance can be used on the tank instead of offensively.

Originally Posted by Salanis

Its about optimizing the overall healing from your raid as a whole, instead of optimizing the healing of yourself.

To further clarify my point, When I'm playing my paladin I'm of coruse watching health bars, healing who I see needs healing, when I see a tanks health drop I immedietly divert my next heals onto that tank, be it a holy shock, or EF, or Holy Light (I will usually beacon him and Holy Light someone else who needs the healing,) or Flash of light...

I don't, I said I noticed two common styles of healing, not the only two.

Originally Posted by voidspark

So what is stopping you from getting HP from the tanks, and then using it on the raid? (and by logic, also using it on the tank then?)

Nothing, I just didn't feel like listing out every single possible scenario to make my point (which was about EF blanketing over a mixed healing style with a stronger focus on keeping tanks up and then healing the raid)

Originally Posted by voidspark

Because that's not how things work. Most healers are better off doing a combination of both, so you're better off having all healers put some healing on the raid.

Case: Druid rolling Lifebloom on a tank, but then focusing HoTs/WG on the raid instead of just spamming Regrowths. Regrowth can then only be used on the tank when absolutely needed, but the druid is still predominantly raid healing.

Case 2: Disc priest using PW:S on the tank specifically for Rapture procs, and then raid healing. If the tank dips, Penance can be used on the tank instead of offensively.

I'm not saying you ONLY focus on healing tanks, I'm saying you not ONLY focus on healing the raid as a whole, by EF blanketing. I actually am agreeing with you more than anything, just struggling to make my point. there is no dedicated tank healing, but there is predominant tank healing, and predominant raid healing. EF blanketing focuses all your time into ef blanketing to be done right, which is keeping you from really keeping the tanks up as well as you can (Beacon will provide a steady stream of healing to the tanks but far less than if you focused on keeping them up.) Not only will you be making the stronger raid healers have to put a little more focus into keeping the tanks up (suboptimally for them) but your Mastery which you have blanketed across the raid will always tick before your throughput healers healing and the healing your doing would have been healed anyway by their hots, but instead it just became overhealing for them.

If by optimizing for maximum hps then you won't, holy paladins pull highest hps EF blanketing but they are unable to pull enough focused healing to keep tanks up, making the monks and druids have to put more effort into healing the tanks and not the raid. While this may kill fights its making some classes do suboptimal healing so the paladin can do "optimal" healing. My point is that if the paladin doesn't EF blanket and instead heals with a Tanks>raid mindset it allows druids and monks to heal with a Raid>tanks mindset(while still throwing out the efficient tank heals they are given, they aren't ignoring tanks by no means!) and your raid will have higher overall HPS going out, especially on progression.

Originally Posted by voidspark

Are you sure you're doing it right?

Nope! thats why I spend a lot of my time surfing these forums, aswell as others and listening to input given by fellow raiders via streams or twitter or whispers or whatever I can find. And I really do appreciate this very conversation as it might hopefully teach me more on how to optimize my playing.

My arguement is not about if Paladins should be dedicated tank healers, no one should anymore. Its rather saying that paladins should not EF blanket the raid to heal, Even though it provides higher hps it is actually causing your raid as a whole to do lower overall hps, The reason I brought it up in this thread is because it applies to the question of what "primary role should holy paladins fill". Every paladin I have ever talked to who felt that holy paladins more primarily raid healers EF blanket, and those who think they fall closer to the tank healing category heal more along the lines of what I attempted to outline.
I was arguing the side of the Tank healing paladin.

Wrong. Blanketing the raid with eternal flame is stacking mastery on them and raising their effective health which is a huge benefit to the raid. And those EFs are transferring to your beacon target. Your whole idea of what a paladin's "real role" to help the raid is false and effectively wasting a raid spot for a real healer. Spot healing the raid...lol? "Oh I am casting a heal on this dps, oh damn atonement just beat me to it!". The game has changed and there no longer needs to be dedicated tank healer or a predominant tank healer as you put it. If your tanks are constantly dying you should be looking at the tanks themselves and what they are doing wrong or the healers as a whole, not the paladins. I have no issues switching direct heals onto tanks when the damage spikes while EF blanketing, and in reality all healers should be ready should be ready to do that. And aoe smart heals/atonement cover spot heals, including a lot of the heals on the tank. If you have a paladin playing the way you describe and actually doing effective healing, the other healers are doing something wrong and/or your tanks are awful.

Crying about EF blanketing ruining the HPS of other healers is dumb. Monks have no issues healing current content and are one of the top healers atm(2nd to disc priests). Paladins are 2nd to last in throughput for 25m heroic while EF blanketing! To me it sounds like your idea of what is good for the raid is other healers playing badly to maximize your HPS.

Your whole idea of what a paladin's "real role" to help the raid is false and effectively wasting a raid spot for a real healer. The game has changed and there no longer needs to be dedicated tank healer or a predominant tank healer as you put it... Crying about EF blanketing ruining the heals of other healers is dumb. Monks have no issues healing current content and are one of the top healers atm. Paladins are 2nd to last in throughput for 25m heroic while EF blanketing!

Basically this. If you don't even know how the class or the encounters this tier work (which is evident from your posts), I don't think you should be giving opinions. Least of all "tank healing paladin good" type opinions.

Your mindset of "either healing the tanks or healing the raid" is not only outdated and illogical, it's wrong.

---------- Post added 2013-06-30 at 05:44 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Salanis

Nothing, I just didn't feel like listing out every single possible scenario to make my point.

So you list two suboptimal styles of playing, and claim that those playstyles are what paladins should be forced into doing...

Originally Posted by Salanis

EF blanketing focuses all your time into ef blanketing to be done right, which is keeping you from really keeping the tanks up as well as you can (Beacon will provide a steady stream of healing to the tanks but far less than if you focused on keeping them up.)

Pick a fight with both heavy raid and tank damage (i.e. Primordius). The best players do what their class is and should be capable of: healing both the tank, and the raid. If you weren't able to heal the raid, you are deadweight on that fight.

Another fight with heavy tank and raid damage: Ra-den. If you can't raid heal effectively, you don't belong in that raid.

Originally Posted by Salanis

Every paladin I have ever talked to who felt that holy paladins more primarily raid healers EF blanket, and those who think they fall closer to the tank healing category heal more along the lines of what I attempted to outline. I was arguing the side of the Tank healing paladin.

And with the role of active mitigation on tanks, "tank healing" is a dead category, do you not understand this?

Wrong. Blanketing the raid with eternal flame is stacking mastery on them and raising their effective health which is a huge benefit to the raid. Your whole idea of what a paladin's "real role" to help the raid is false and effectively wasting a raid spot for a real healer. The game has changed and there no longer needs to be dedicated tank healer or a predominant tank healer as you put it. If your tanks are constantly dying you should be looking at the tanks themselves and what they are doing wrong or the healers as a whole, not the paladins.

Crying about EF blanketing ruining the heals of other healers is dumb. Monks have no issues healing current content and are one of the top healers atm. Paladins are 2nd to last in throughput for 25m heroic while EF blanketing!

*I was upset more that I wasn't getting a response that refuted my claims, but we're merely "you are wrong there doesn't need to be a dedicated tank healer" without any real explanation of why*
Mastery raising a the raids "effective health" is great sure, on a boss who's mechanics are capable of near globaling someone faster than hots and throughput heals can save them, yet don't hit hard enough that the extra 30-50k bubble (estimating high here for your average ef blanketed bubble) will save them from (no fights this or most tiers.)
*The point I was trying to make at the time was that in the case of these large raid aoe hits where that extra health would come into play, the damage could still be better handled if the paladin was to reliably focus on getting the tank up quick (Who needs to be healed faster than the raid even) it would allow the raid healers to focus on getting HoTs and their big aoe raid heals going instead of also trying to throw heals onto the tank while they heal. in the situation where both the raid and the tanks need healed big and fast, let the healers who can heal tanks more effectively in that very moment focus on healing the tanks, and the healers who's raid healing is more effective focus on the raid in that very moment.*
I agree paladins need a buff, a serious one! But despite that, if a paladin who is lowest on the meters ef blanketing can drop his heals even 10k more and allow the monk who is top on the meters to increase his hps by another 15k (doesn't happen like this in 25's, its more like 20k increased hps split among 4 other healers in the raid) then he should absolutely do it because it is in the end increasing the overall healing of the raid. Even more optimally you would replace the paladin who is lowest on the meters, unfortunately.

Last edited by Salanis; 2013-06-30 at 04:11 PM.
Reason: To hopefully clear up some of the points I was trying to make at the time

I edited the post with the hope of making it a little more constructive, but the point I made in my first paragraph still stands. The last thing needed, in any discussion especially one with changes coming, is a point of view based on complete fallacies.

Originally Posted by Salanis

I'll try to look past what just feels like a petty attack towards me and take is a constructive debate.

Sorry, but your posts give the impression that you absolutely don't understand the class, the last thing the community really has patience for is someone who doesn't know the class giving opinions on it. We have enough disc priests and resto shamans (*cough* and some druids) doing that on official forums right now. I hate to say this, but you're going to keep feeling like you're being attacked when others inform you of the fact that your opinion is based on completely illogical thought processes.

Originally Posted by Salanis

Mastery raising a the raids "effective health" is great sure, on a boss who's mechanics are capable of near globaling someone faster than hots and throughput heals can save them, yet don't hit hard enough that the extra 30-50k bubble (estimating high here for your average ef blanketed bubble) will save them from (no fights this or most tiers.)

TL/DR: This statement is completely false.

Also, just tested: My EF bubble with kings buff alone is ~35k on the initial tick, within 10 seconds it is ~65k. Your 50k bubble is a severe underestimate.

Originally Posted by Salanis

But despite that, if a paladin who is lowest on the meters ef blanketing can drop his heals even 10k more and allow the monk who is top on the meters to increase his hps by another 15k (doesn't happen like this in 25's, its more like 20k increased hps split among 4 other healers in the raid) then he should absolutely do it because it is in the end increasing the overall healing of the raid. Even more optimally you would replace the paladin who is lowest on the meters, unfortunately.

How the fuck are you going to drop 10k hps and let someone else get 15k hps...

I'll try to look past what just feels like a petty attack towards me and take is a constructive debate.
Mastery raising a the raids "effective health" is great sure, on a boss who's mechanics are capable of near globaling someone faster than hots and throughput heals can save them, yet don't hit hard enough that the extra 30-50k bubble (estimating high here for your average ef blanketed bubble) will save them from (no fights this or most tiers.) I agree paladins need a buff, a serious one! But despite that, if a paladin who is lowest on the meters ef blanketing can drop his heals even 10k more and allow the monk who is top on the meters to increase his hps by another 15k (doesn't happen like this in 25's, its more like 20k increased hps split among 4 other healers in the raid) then he should absolutely do it because it is in the end increasing the overall healing of the raid. Even more optimally you would replace the paladin who is lowest on the meters, unfortunately.

Are you serious? You don't seem to know how this game works. The paladin lowers his hps by 10k will raise the monk HPS by 15k? Really? How is 5k extra damage happening? Paladin absorbs and absorbs as a whole are not lowering the total raid hps happening. Hate to break it to you, you have it wrong. Completely wrong.

I believe I very well could be wrong, but I feel you guys are missing the whole point of my arguement completely, to the point where I'm having to try and explain things that don't even begin to matter about what I'm trying to say (I said that you have to either tank heal OR raid heal? no I didn't ) The "extra" 5k healing is that which the throughput healers are losing by suboptimally using their expensive or long heals to get up the tanks while the paladin EF blankets though to answer that question (which I earlier explained) But I secede, though I'm not really convinced. *This is the reason I dropped out of the conversation, the point which was at the very core of my argument was completely missed. The idea is in a progression scenario, where your raid wipes because your healers go oom by the end of the fight, their throughput drops and people start dying. when you optimize your healers so that they are healing the overall raid damage as efficiently as possible as a whole, that mana lasts longer and come the end of that fight where your healers would have oomed they now have that extra mana to keep healing up, thus creating the "extra" 5k hps. Its just playing the idea of a healer maximising their mana usage/healing into the whole raid maximising throughput as a unit, instead of 4-5 healers maximising for themselves alone.*

Also if you don't know what I meant when I referred to "being attacked" perhaps read over some of your responses, calling someone stupid(implied) or "wrong"(quoted) doesn't make your case any more true, and it doesn't add anything to the conversation, its only purpose is to insult and berate the person your talking to. Its common in discussion but its really a bad habit when trying to have a civil conversation (or earn the respect of others reading in)*Not really upset here, just annoyed that I came expecting a civil conversation and got a bunch of name calling and berating amidst the discussion, when I "post something that is wrong" you don't call it anything, you refute the claim as best you can and if I fail to see your point you can either continue to debate your side, or you can just leave end the conversation. no one has to agree, but name calling does nothing but aggravate both parties.*

Last edited by Salanis; 2013-06-30 at 04:27 PM.
Reason: To hopefully clear up some of the points I was trying to make at the time

The "extra" 5k healing is that which the throughput healers are losing by suboptimally using their expensive or long heals to get up the tanks while the paladin EF blankets though to answer that question (which I earlier explained) But I secede, though I'm not really convinced.

As Freia put, you're just wrong. The only way you can get an "extra" 5k healing is if the raid is taking an "extra" 5k damage. And all healers have a tank heal that is neither expensive nor long.

Originally Posted by Salanis

Also if you don't know what I meant when I referred to "being attacked" perhaps read over some of your responses, calling someone stupid or "wrong" doesn't make your case any more true

So when you post shit that is wrong (such as above), what are we supposed to call it? Incorrect? Fallacious? Misinformed? If you want euphemisms, go to Kindergarten class.

P.S. The word "stupid" appeared once on this page. That was when you said it

You should probably get off the internet if every time someone says you are wrong you are going to take offense. If you feel you are not wrong then get proof to back up your points rather than cry that people are saying you are stupid when they are telling you that what you are posting is wrong. I don't even know how you make it through WoW if you get offended this easily.